Wednesday, May 21, 2008

Let Them Eat Cake!

These are the latest two scrapbook pages from my nephews' birthday party this past weekend. I posted three other pages a couple of days ago. I think both cakes are adorable! And, now I know what a "Diego" cake is. Too cute. You can click on the picture for a larger image.

I have a nice little stash of digital scrapbook kits and papers that I need to remind myself to browse through every so often. They also make great backgrounds for collage and other art projects. I'm working on a system to organize all of these computerized files a little better. I've not done too bad, considering it took me until this year to start actually using the "folder" tool. Before, everything was thrown together under My Pictures, which made for a mammoth file to sort through. Live and learn!

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *I sat down last night to work on my latest bride paintover and was just not happy with it. I had this elaborate plan for her dress and the more I looked at it, the more it wasn't working. I've been debating about this piece for awhile, so I just ripped the thing off the canvas and am starting over.

Now I'm glad I did. I really like the way this new version is progressing and it's more of what I had in mind for the first one, only it just wasn't translating onto the canvas the way I envisioned it! Needless to say, it will take awhile before this one is finished, since I'm starting from scratch.

Sometimes you just have to do that: "kill your darlings". This is what I've heard it called when you run across the same dilemma in a piece of writing. No matter how much it hurts, if it isn't working you have to rip it out and start over. The resistance comes from rationalizing that you've put so much work into it already and just scrapping it makes it seem like you wasted your time. But you really didn't. Sometimes the work takes a little longer to gel in your mind, and when it does take shape, then you know if you are on the right track.

In writing, you can always save the character or the theme or whatever it is that isn't working for another piece. It's the same with art. If I had wanted to save portions of that dress for another project I could have. I did do that, in a way. I cut it up and am using bits and pieces for background on another project.

I should have listened to my first instinct as I was working on that first version. Whenever I find myself avoiding my art or writing it's usually because there is something that I don't want to face. In this case, I knew I didn't like the way it was turning out and that was affecting my attitude toward working on it. Now that I've changed it, the passion and excitement is still there to keep going. Which is exactly what I'm going to go and do right now! Until next time...

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About Me

Isabella is the name of my Muse. She is very temperamental and usually hard to please; we manage to make art in spite of this fact. My passions: my husband, art, doll making, writing, Beanie (my cat), coffee, reading, chocolate, and always more coffee!